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Glenn Beck Blames 'Spider-Man' Woes on Liberal Theater Critics

Liberal reviewers have been overly critical of early performances of Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark because of partisan bias, says the show’s No. 1 fan: Glenn Beck.

On his radio show Wednesday, Beck used nearly 30 minutes of airtime to shower the much-maligned show with praise not only for its entertainment value but for its political messages as well.

Beck’s enthusiastic endorsement suggests that the $50 million production that has been plagued by accidents, injuries, budget overruns, cast departures and a poor reception from theater intelligentsia might, in the end, be a hit with conservatives — even if liberals aren’t thrilled with it.

Beck said that, given the leftward political tilt of New York in general and Broadway in particular, he expected a few “teabagging jokes” to work their way into the play, but instead he was floored by the right-leaning sentiments.

Similar to conservative tea-partiers, the show disparages atheism, the idea of manmade global warming, overreaching government officials and a clueless and corrupt media, Beck said.

Beck describes one of the antagonists as “an atheist, god-like scientist whose in bed with a giant government that is using the global-warming scientist and all the global-warming hype for their own purposes.”

The press portrayed in the show, though, embraces the mad-man scientist and rejects the hero Spider-Man, a plot twist sure to resonate with a conservative audience prone to distrust the mainstream media.
Right-wingers, in fact, made similar observations when hailing The Dark Knight as one of the best “conservative” movies of all time.

Beck compared the physicality in Spider-Man to a Cirque du Soleil show and says that, while he’s no fan of U2, the music from Bono and the Edge is “unbelievable.”

“It’s hit after hit after hit after hit,” he said, predicting the soundtrack will outsell U2 CDs.

“This is not only worth the price of a ticket here on Broadway, which is pricey, it is worth the price of an airline ticket from Los Angeles or Hawaii to come to New York to see it,” he said.

Beck is major fan of Broadway. One of his sidekicks Wednesday called him a “theater snob.”

Beck saw the show Saturday. He said on his Monday show that’s where he was when he learned that Rep. Gabrielle Giffords had been shot, so he dispatched an extra security detail to protect his children because he predicted media pundits would blame him for the shooting.